weekend by the sea (betty's bay, south africa)

Jen is on school holidays!! Let's get out of town!

My MBA program has been a little restrictive on our weekend trips (to say the least). So with two free weekends this month before our last road trip in southern Africa at the end of the month, we had to take advantage!

We hit the road looking for some hiking and some swimming last weekend, and found both in Betty's Bay, near Hermanus. We also detoured west for another amazing lunch at Havercroft's in Stanford.

Jim prepares to snorkel this swimming hole, perched on the rock in the upper-left.

Taking after my husband.

Beautiful spot to stop. The black flag means shark danger is low - no sharks spotted. 

road tripping and city living (durban and sodwana bay, kwaZulu-natal)

We had a great time breaking up our time in the wild with a little stopover in Durban on our road trip. Durban has a huge Indian community, so the food is awesome. We had great curries every night and spent afternoons walking the city beaches. 

From Durban we headed north up the coast to Sodwana Bay, a beautiful place a bit south of the border of Mozambique. Jennifer got her scuba certification, and Jim got an advanced open water certification. We only got to dive together a couple of times :) but managed to see some beautiful water life - green turtles, moray eels, giant potato bass (as big as Jennifer!!), and amazing live corals. Aside from vomiting at the end of every dive waiting for the boat to head back to shore (Jennifer gets very seasick!!) it was an amazing week at scuba camp. 

A camera shot back towards the city of Durban.

Beers on a big pier over the Durban Waterfront after a long morning beach walk.

Hanging out on the beach!

Who needs an ocean when there is a gigantic pool that is 2 feet deep?  This was a spectacle to behold!

A Durban beach two days before Christmas.  There are certain sections of the beach for swimming that are about 100 meters wide and tightly policed by lifeguards.  Kids from all around pack into those 100 meters to get their chance at diving and jumping into the waves.

Body surfing!

kensoks on a quick trip! (cape town)

We really enjoyed having Tim and Karen visit before the holiday break.  It was great to see them and be able to spend time with family before Jennifer and I set off on another adventure together.  Tim and Karen spent most of their days by the pool with interesting books in hand--the kind of vacation that leaves you well rested and content.  They also took Jennifer and I out to countless lunches and dinners of extremely high quality.  It was fun to taste all of the great food and wine together and share stories from past Christmas and Thanksgiving seasons.  They will attest to the splendor of the Greenspan residence and the luxury that it provides should anyone be tempted to book tickets at the last minute.

Dad on a hike above Hout Bay

Re-visiting a favorite spot from their last visit!

Jennifer worked very hard on my birthday cake.  Thank you Jennifer!!!!

Birthday boy with all his spoils!!

It is the whole crew of birthday gatherers at the table. Starting from left to wrap around the table to the right: Bash, Mia, Me, Patrick, Randy, Erika, Tim, Karen, Gabby, Tom, and Jennifer taking the picture!  We had a blast at dinner and enjoyed goofing around with everyone.

family vacation (cape town)

Just after returning from Namibia, the Petoskey's descended on Cape Town for a visit! We had an awesome two weeks with Betsy, Bill, Cassie & Craig, complete with beaches, wine tastings, lots of card-playing, and a few big seafood meals.

Here are a few photos that I took during the visit.

Our makeshift Christmas tree!

Wine tasting at Groot Constantia

Day at the beach: preparing to bury Cassie.

Looking good!

We took the crew to a Saturday market and ate yummy food; this was a giant batch of paella (it was delicious).

More wine tasting at Eagle's Nest.

day 5: damaraland to swakapmund (namibia)

On day 5 Jennifer and I left Damaraland at sunrise to drive across a landscape that had received its first major rain in three years only two weeks prior.  So, it looked a fantastic green--the desert in bloom.  We drove past huge outcroppings of red-orange sandstone that lit up in the morning sun and dodged cows that roamed free throughout the landscape.  The only people we saw lived in shacks and maintained the herds of cows, besides two roadside stops, where a nearly naked Himba impersonator, with breasts bared, would try to motion us off the road to buy trinkets from her stand.  The Himba tribes in Northwestern Namibia are famous for retaining their ancient culture and are often visited as a tourist attraction.  The Himba tribe visit was something we cut out of our original plans.

To arrive at the coast of Namibia we needed to cross a vast desert that contained almost no vegetation.  There were a couple of succulent bushes that were able to absorb moisture from fog or mist once we came within 20 miles of the coast.  In this vast desert we were fortunate to come across a brown hyena--one of the rarest predators in Africa.  Sadly, the hyena was dead on the road and had been hit earlier that morning or in the night.  Brown hyenas are almost never seen because they move through the desert at night and are solitary animals covering vast amounts of space to find food.

The fur seal colony was interesting, but smelled so awful that it almost wasn't worth the trip.  There were just as many living seal pups as there were dead seal pups and the flies were swarming us in the summer sun.  The pictures were fun to take and the living seal babies would cry to us as we walked by them over the boardwalk.  The seals--both mothers and babies were gathered under the boardwalk to hide from the sun, or at least that is our reason for this behavior.  Thousands of seals were gathered on the beach, with each male having a harem of multiple females.  All of the seals needed to compete for space, which created a cacophony of grunts and yelps.  Mother seals need to hunt for food every few days, then return to find their pup on the beach midst this ruckus--not an enviable job.  

One of the most amazing parts of this picture is the green grass--all of the grazers seemed pretty happy with it.

This is the Brandberg Mountain, which rises strait out of the desert.  It is not part of any mountain chain and is over 6,000 feet tall.

This is the brown hyena--note how long the fur is.  Brown Hyenas, differing from the more common spotted hyena, are more like wolves of the desert.  They have small family groups and often hunt alone for small game

beach walk (kommetjie)

Last weekend was rainy! It started pouring on Friday afternoon while I was out on a walk, and didn't stop for about two days.

We spent Saturday in Stellenbosch with our roommate Patrick, who ran a half marathon. Jim and I had gone out for dinner the night before and found it tough to wake up at 6 to get to the finish line by 7:30, so all three of us were ready to reward ourselves with a big breakfast after the race :) At least Jim and I could say we "went to" the marathon.

Sunday began clearing off by noon, so Jim and I decided to do a beach walk we'd read about in our new Cape Town hiking book.

We set off from Long Beach in Kommetjie (pronounced comma-key - "tjie" sounds like "key" in Afrikaans) and walked along the water, watching surfers in the water and dogs on the beach. As we got further up the beach, we started to see seals! We saw a few dead ones, actually, on the beach, but also some live ones in the water and coming up out of the water to warm up.

We walked past an African Oystercatcher colony as well as some flocks of flamingos.

The walk's turning point was a shipwreck which seems to have been salvaged and scrapped over time - currently a large boiler and some iron posts are all that's left, but you can still see the boat's general outline and length. It has been pretty buried in the sand.

We turned and walked back, wading through river outlets in a few points, and enjoyed watching surfers again before heading home.

gorgeous saturday! (camps bay, cape town)

Last Saturday was a really, really, really beautiful day, and Jim and I made the most of it! We got up and made a big breakfast, and then hit the road to find a great hike. We had heard about walks beginning in Camp's Bay (a neighborhood on the water just over the hill from the center of Cape Town) and heading up Table Mountain from the Atlantic Ocean side. After driving around for half an hour or so :) we wound our way up the hill to the start of trail. We chose one path up the mountain and set off; we thought we'd hike for three hours or so and then head to the beach! (Camp's Bay also has a great beach that is very popular with tourists, which we kind of like right now because we aren't the only sometimes-confused white people wandering around! "Other targets," as Jim says).

Well, all roads up Table Mountain seem to be steep, and this one is no exception. We huffed and puffed for about two hours, clambering over boulders and up a very steep, very long (but luckily not very full) waterfall, before reaching a beautiful overlook about 200 feet below the top of the mountain, and decided to take a break, which we spent staring at the turquoise blue waters of the beach below us. Surprise, surprise, our "break" turned into our turning point. We gave up on the summit and headed back down. But we did make it to the beach for the rest of the day.

After "sundowners" (drinks at sunset) with two other teachers from AISCT, Jim caught some beautiful shots of Camps Bay on our drive back along the coast.

Starting the hike! Looking up at the "twelve apostles", the name of the twelve large outcroppings that stretch along the coast between Table Mountain and Hout Bay. We climbed up between the third and fourth ones from the left (yes it was steep!)

Already a pretty view back toward the beach, with Lion's Head on the right. Cape Town city center is off to the right, over the other side of the hill.

Already hot! Remind us to start hikes before 11am next time.

Taking a rest under a shady outcropping, with beautiful views.

Walking along a ledge, winding our way over to where we'll start to climb in earnest.

The waterfall we climbed up. Yes, it was really steep!!

The trail drops off behind these bushes; the views were beautiful the whole way!

Jim at our "peak"!

Mm, that beach behind my head looks nice.

Sweating our way down.

Table Mountain Quartzite, what Table Mountain is made of, has properties that make it break off and erode at right angles. That's why the hills look like they are full of square rocks, and have such sheer faces.

Looking back toward Camps Bay just after sunset, with the twelve apostles on the right.

Looking out toward sunset.